Guest Post by Garasamo Maccagnone: Promote Your Book With Video!

Today we have the pleasure of hosting the book trailer for Garasamo Maccagnone’s recently released novel, St. John of the Midfield. Along with Garasamo’s trailer, this article by Maccagnone offers some suggestions for how to use YouTube for marketing your book.

Are you looking to create video to us in marketing your book? Or, are you looking for a way to get the video you already have in front of viewers? YouTubing is a form of social networking where people share their interests as well as create and post their own videos. Once posted, a video clip is keyword searchable and eligible to be placed in the playlist of anyone who finds the clip enjoyable. This is very helpful as you can use video to attract viewers and place your book trailer or video clip where it can be seen by your audience.

Playlists also appear in keyword searches with YouTube ranking keyword search results for playlists based in part on the number of clips in a list. Viewers who are searching on a theme are likely to run through an entire playlist and will save clips they like best to their own lists. They also have the option of emailing clips they like to a friend or of capturing and imbedding clips into their own site.

Take advantage of YouTube and attract readers interested in your book themes by creating a playlist of clips that will capitalize on theme-based keyword searches. Once you have a playlist created you are ready to place your own video or book trailer in front of the searching public.


Consider creating and/or posting:

• Author video blogs
• A slideshow video clip with an audio excerpt from your book
• Video book reviews from a professional reviewer
• Book Trailers

Tips for creating YouTube video clips and book trailers:

• Ideally, a clip should run from one to three minutes in length. 
• Avoid defining what the characters look like as most readers prefer to visualize what they are reading as they imagine it, placing themselves as the hero or heroine.
• Incorporate audio in the form of music to add emotion and depth.
• Use video comprised of still images or a mixture of stills and video.
• Insert written stills or scrolling written teasers.
• Images and content should directly relate to the content of your book.
• Content should convey a sense of what the book is about without spoilers.
• Keep in mind that the goal of your video clip is to capture the interest of the viewer, to create excitement about the book, and to encourage people to buy.
• Make sure you have set appropriate keyword tags on your video playlist, and have links to your author Web page in your YouTube channel profile settings. 
 

With your video or book trailer created and your playlist set up, the social networking aspect of your promotional efforts are set in motion. The YouTube channel and playlist you have set up are now ready to redirect traffic to your home page and the links to purchase your book.

Have fun and enjoy the creative process.



Tomorrow, Vonnie Faroqui will post a review of St. John of the Midfield, at her blog http://inkslingerswhimsey.blogspot.com/. Follow Vonnie on Twitter: @inkslngrswhmz. For the full tour schedule be sure to visit http://bit.ly/midfieldtour.

"Frugal & Focused Tweeting For Retailers": A Great Book For Authors, Too!

Before Carolyn Howard-Johnson became an acclaimed author, she spent nearly three decades in the retail industry, as founder and manager of her own chain of stores, a retail consultant and a New York publicist. The latest book in her "Survive and Thrive" series is Frugal & Focused Tweeting for Retailers, and it is a great read for not just people in the retail industry, but for those in the publishing industry as well. After all, being a writer is in many ways similar to running your very own small business. Not only must you strive to make your writing the best it can be -- if you want to expand your readership, it is also imperative to learn how to be successful at marketing yourself and your work.

That is where Howard-Johnson comes in. Her goal in this book is to help those with businesses (or books!) use Twitter in ways they never imagined by "doing it right" and integrating their efforts with all the other marketing they do.

Are you clueless at social networking? Frugal & Focused Tweeting for Retailers walks you through the basics of setting up a Twitter account and demystifies the jargon of Twitter lingo.

Do you already have a Twitter account set up but want to gain a bigger audience of followers and learn how to add clout to your online presence? This is a great book for you, too!

Twitter is indeed a frugal way to promote yourself and your books -- it's free to join and use! Howard-Johnson gives advice on ways to build connections with potential customers through Twitter, integrate your advertising, and even give a Twitter party.

I'll end with a quote from the beginning of the book by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks: "People get information in all kinds of ways now, and companies can no longer talk at the consumer. You have to engage in a discussion and let people create, discover, and share information and not just try to sell them things." Whether you're selling coffee or selling books, I couldn't agree more. In Frugal & Focused Tweeting for Retailers, Howard-Johnson helps show you how to start a discussion with consumers -- or readers!

Visit Carolyn Howard-Johnson's website.

She also keeps a blog called "Sharing With Writers and Readers."

You can also connect with her on Twitter (of course!) and Facebook. 

While you're there, connect with me on Twitter, too! :)